The U.S. government has awarded $4.6 million in aid to the state of Montana to retrain hundreds of coal workers, many of whom will soon be out of jobs because of a partial closure of the coal-fired Colstrip power plant, the second biggest in the West. Despite efforts...

Events are bearing out forecasts that the coal industry will continue to decline in the United States, even if a minor bump in employment masks the overall trend. In the first quarter of this year, coal industry jobs declined by 1,266 workers, according to government...

Ex-coal miners in the nation’s largest coal-producing state might find hope with a new energy employer: a wind power company. The American arm of Goldwind, a Chinese wind turbine maker, has announced a free program in Wyoming to retrain miners to become wind...

The city of Birmingham, Alabama is investing $61.3 million in energy upgrades in 125 municipal buildings, which will save the city $100 million in energy and operational costs over the next two decades and create local jobs. In a partnership with HVAC...

Maryland’s Public Service Commission has approved ratepayer subsidies that will help fund construction of a pair of wind farms off the coast of Ocean City that will dwarf the only other offshore project in the United States. Officials had been expected to choose...

With many coal producers teetering on the brink of insolvency, Congress is considering legislation that will require the companies and the government to pay out healthcare benefits to retired coal miners. The provision to secure the United Mine Workers’...

The Colorado Legislature is considering a measure to proactively help coal industry workers transition to the new energy economy by using private capital and the bond market. “The Colorado Energy Impact Assistance Act” would create low-interest bonds that utilities...

“The future for coal in the United States? There is no future.”

– Former Duke Energy CEO and Chairman Jim Rogers, speaking at the release of a new report calling coal’s decline one of the most “spectacular market collapses in equity history.” The combined market value of the four largest U.S. coal companies fell from $33 billion to $150 million in five short years.

Wind power added jobs over nine times faster than the overall U.S. economy in 2016, according to the American Wind Energy Association. According to its “2016 U.S. Wind Industry Annual Market Report,” more than 8 gigawatts of new wind power were installed for a second...

An Eastern Kentucky coal mining company has unveiled plans to build what could become the state’s largest solar farm on a reclaimed mountaintop strip mine, promising jobs for displaced coal miners. The Berkeley Energy Group and EDF Renewable Energy are exploring...

“If you’d told me I’d be working in solar, I would’ve never believed you. I always thought I’d bounce from coal job to coal job until all the mines closed and I had to leave.”

– Former West Virginia coal miner Robert Atkins, who was retrained as a solar technician after being laid off from his coal job and now works as a crew chief overseeing installations for startup developer Solar Holler.

Through bipartisan cooperation, the Midwest has become a leader in implementing energy efficiency measures. The region has seen a 225 percent increase in energy efficiency investments since 2008; $1 billion was invested in electricity and natural gas energy efficiency...

A subsidiary of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Energy has unveiled its plans to spend $3.5 billion to bring hundreds of new wind turbines online across the West over the next three years. PacifiCorp, which operates utilities that serve customers in six...

“It sounds really bold to say, but what we’re trying to do is to rebuild the Appalachian economy from the ground up. … We don’t get into the moral argument of coal being good or bad, we just talk about jobs and entrepreneurship.”

– Brandon Dennison, co-founder and CEO of Coalfield Development Corp, a nonprofit that offers out-of-work coal miners a chance to learn new skills, including solar installation.

Minneapolis-based Xcel Energy has rolled out a proposal to add seven wind farms in the Upper Midwest totaling 1,500 megawatts of new wind energy and expanding the utility’s wind fleet in the region by 60 percent. The projects, a combination of Xcel-owned wind farms...

A new report from Navigant Consulting concludes that the U.S. wind industry will drive over $85 billion in economic activity over the next four years while wind-related employment will grow to reach 248,000 jobs in all 50 states in 2020. The report forecasts new wind...

“You will not be forgotten. The sacrifice and the danger, the songs and the tradition. They won’t be lost. You really did keep the lights on. We love you for it. But the jobs, and the future of coal mining, are a vanishing thing. Please, for your own sake and that of your nation, do the hardest thing ever—anything else.”

– from An open letter to America’s coal miners, and to America by former coal miner and mining executive Mark Sumner

“There were nearly 700,000 [coal] miners … in 1919. There were 450,000 when World War II began. There were fewer than 200,000 when Eisenhower took office. By 2000, that number was down to about 70,000. And it keeps falling. Coal will never again be the industry your fathers knew, or that you knew in your youth.”

– from An open letter to America’s coal miners, and to America by former coal miner and mining executive Mark Sumner

“Forget the songs. Ignore the banners. You don’t sell coal to ‘America.’ You sell it to Duke Energy, and Southern Company, and NRG and a few dozen others. That’s who buys coal. Only they’re buying less. And they’re going to keep buying less, until they’re buying none at all. Donald Trump isn’t going to change that.”

– from An open letter to America’s coal miners, and to America by former coal miner and mining executive Mark Sumner

With construction complete on a new wind farm, Kansas’ Westar Energy can now meet more than half the annual electricity needs of its customers with clean energy. The utility’s new 280-megawatt Western Plains Wind Farm began full operation on March 1. The...

“[T]his is 100,000 new jobs for people, for Texans, who need good, high-paying jobs. They’re about $75,000 a year in salary. So these are good jobs.”

– Marilu Hastings, vice president of sustainability programs at the Mitchell Foundation, speaking with Breitbart Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow on Energy Secretary Rick Perry’s track record in support of wind energy development in his home state.

– from a letter signed by a dozen businesses, including Nestlé and Ben & Jerry’s, thanking the Michigan Legislature for for passing a bipartisan bill in 2016 that increases the state’s renewable energy standard to 15 percent by 2021.

Florida’s largest solar generator has announced a significant expansion of its capacity with eight new projects to be built over the next year. Florida Power & Light’s projects, which will be sited throughout the state, will have a capacity of 74.5...

A bipartisan group of lawmakers in Minnesota has introduced a bill to double the state’s renewable energy standard to 50 percent by 2030. In a release announcing the measure, Lt. Governor Tina Smith said the state is already on its way to surpassing the benchmark of...

According to job data from the U.S. Department of Energy, total employment in the wind energy sector surpassed 100,000 in January 2017. The data show that 101,738 Americans employed by the wind power industry. – via the U.S Department of...

The American solar workforce grew at a historic pace in 2016, a year when one out of every 50 new U.S. jobs was in the solar industry, according to The Solar Foundation’s seventh annual National Solar Jobs Census 2016. The census found that solar industry added...

Minnesota could create 15,000 jobs and save more than $3.1 billion by reducing energy use in municipal buildings, universities, schools and hospitals, according to a new report by the BlueGreen Alliance, which coordinates labor unions with environmental groups. Money...